At a time when the Chinese were impressed with Western astronomical knowledge, Verbiest, a trained astronomer, took the place of his Jesuit predecessor, Adam Schall von Bell, as director of the Imperial Board of Astronomy. He advised the Chinese emperor in many matters, including the construction of more than 300 cannon when the Qing dynasty was threatened by a rebellion in South China. In 1678 Verbiest served as a translator in Chinese treaty negotiations with the Russians, in the process obtaining from the Russians knowledge of an overland route through Siberia that could be used by Jesuits coming to China from Europe. Verbiest’s correspondence with his European friends describing the achievements of Chinese civilization inspired such European Enlightenment figures as the German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz.

last of the imperial dynasties of China, spanning the years 1644 to 1911/12. Under the Qing the territory of the empire grew to treble its size under the preceding Ming dynasty (1368–1644), the population grew from some 150 million to 450 million, many of the non-Chinese minorities within...

July 1 [June 21, Old Style], 1646 Leipzig [Germany] November 14, 1716 Hannover, Hanover German philosopher, mathematician, and political adviser, important both as a metaphysician and as a logician and distinguished also for his independent invention of the differential and integral calculus.